Olivier Hersent, Socracy President

The Internet has dramatically changed the way people discuss about pressing public issues and its influence continues to gain ground. Any citizen may contribute to debates and generate new ideas. Politicians now exchange ideas with their electorate via social media accounts and blogs, while political campaign planners have welcomed the online space into their election strategy.

XWiki's public debate solution brings people together in an online secure community where opinions may be shared freely. The solution aims to build a database of facts, proposals and analysis that are relevant to enriching the public debate. At the same time the platform offers the perfect environment for centralizing and understanding public opinion.

Discussions on the website are divided into themes and debates are organized around these themes. People can freely share their feedback on the proposed debates, or start their own topics. Website members can easily communicate on the website, as well as send debates to friends by email and share opinions via social networks. 

France Energies is a French independent political party that aims to constitute an alternative for the 2012 elections. The party has identified ten of the biggest challenges that our society faces today. Understanding the growing importance of the Internet and wanting people to be able to freely share their opinions, France Energies was searching for a platform that would allow the exchange of ideas based on these ten major themes. The ultimate goal is for the discussions to constitute the basis for the party's government program.

Being the next generation wiki, XWiki provided the built in features, but also the extensibility needed to create a website that would describe the party and foster communication between its members. People can now easily join the party. A system that facilitates donations has been implemented. All discussions are organized in themes, proposals and debates, so you may immediately get to the topic that most interests you. At the same time the strong social media component allows visitors to freely share discussions with their connections.

The France Energies web site is built as a "Virtual Party" on top of Socracy.org, allowing to reduce maintenance and hosting costs, but still permits a high level of customization.